A.
Introduction
We are fortunate to be living in a time when
an old era is ending and a new one is
about to begin. We are fortunate not because
we have the opportunity to witness this
grand turn of history. We are fortunate
because we shoulder the responsibility of
carrying forward the events that will usher
in an epoch of peace and prosperity for
the whole world.
The past millennium has been most violent in
mankind’s history. Unprecedented
genocides were committed during the past
thousand years. Wars during the
millennium were more devastating than ever
before. Slavery, inquisitions,
witch-hunting, ethnic cleansing, colonialism,
imperialism, carpet bombing, nuclear
weapons – are some words that illustrate the
character of the past one thousand
years.
Rising beyond the past thousand years, today
when humanity is looking with hope
for the next thousand years there is growing
realization that some fundamental
changes are needed in today’s paradigm of
human thought, which has been shaped
during the past thousand years by increasing
influence of one-book religions. As the
world looks to redefine the paradigm of human
ideas, relationships and
organizations, there is growing interest in
the religions that existed prior to the rise of
one-book religions.
One-book religions have often used the term
“pagan” as a derogatory term for all
native religions that did not follow any one
particular book. Let us continue using the
term (in the absence of any other more
convenient term) without any derogatory
connotations. Hinduism, Buddhism,
Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism are some of
the leading pagan religions alive today. But
there were many others including
practices and belief systems of natives of
Europe, Americas, Africa and
Australia.
It is worth noting that the pagan religions
never had any mutual animosity like the
type seen among the one-book religions.
Relations between different pagan religions
have always been friendly and based on mutual
trust, cooperation, respect and
learning from each other’s experiences and
knowledge. There has always been a
spirit of tolerance, understanding and
exchange between different pagan religions
with no one claiming to be the only true one
or being superior to everyone else.
Even though each pagan religion was
independent and equal to every other one,
Hinduism enjoyed a position of friend,
philosopher and guide for all other pagan
religions. This central position of Hinduism
was surely not evidenced by any formal
declaration. Nevertheless, in an informal way
Hinduism was critical and important
source of strength and guidance for all pagan
religions across the world.
As the interest in pagan religions grows
across the world and as people seek to go
back to their native religions, the interest
in Hinduism is also growing. Pagan
religions often appear to be loose,
contradictory, ill-defined, nebulous set of rituals,
practices and beliefs. This is so largely
because of the tendency to see pagan
religions through the eyes of one-book
religions. There is clearly a need to
rediscover or redefine the intellectual or
philosophical framework that for centuries
formed the backbone of almost all pagan
religions.
In this context, it is interesting to look at
the intellectual philosophical framework or in
other words the paradigm of Hinduism as it
existed in ancient times. This paradigm
may probably be useful to define (or
rediscover) an ideological structure for other
pagan religions.
A word of caution at this point – Hinduism
does not seek to impose its framework on
any pagan religion. Let no one smell any
attempt to proselytize. The Hindu way is
always to utter and not to argue. There is no
attempt to even convince.
But before taking up the exercise of
rediscovering the intellectual framework of
ancient Hinduism it is necessary to go back
in time and understand the reasons for
the debacle of Hindus and Hinduism. Surely,
some weakness had crept into the
Hindu thought process. Understanding that
weakness and removing it is a challenge
that the Hindus must face up to.
In the past thousand years, Hindus were under
attack. The religious mindset that
evolved during this period was either
defensive or provided a sedative to relieve from
the pains. As Hinduism seeks a new role on
the global arena in shaping human
thought, in defining human relationships and
in helping human beings live a more
meaningful life, it needs to shed the
defensive as well as sedative roles and
rediscover its old historical self of one and
a half millennium ago.
The process of rediscovering the ancient
Hinduism and of it becoming a guide for
thought process of the world is not motivated
by any individual’s or group’s or
nation’s desire for hegemony. The motivation
is a deep-rooted desire to lead the
world to a new era of peace, prosperity and
well-being. The motivation is to heal the
wounds of the past thousand years. It is time
to liberate the human mind from the
cast iron walls of one-bookisms, clergy,
church and such other institutions.
In the past century while shaking off the
chains of one-bookisms, human mind
moved towards the other extreme of anarchical
individualism and materialism. It was
fine to shed the burqa (veil) and the mindset
wherein taking a bath was an act of sin,
but feeling proud of displaying one’s
genitals in public is surely as ridiculous and
needs to be condemned in as strong terms. Not
surprisingly, presently the world
seems to have got tired with the twentieth
century’s concept of freedom even though
one does not want to go back to the dark
middle ages.
The human race is groping for a new
intellectual paradigm that will provide the
middle path between the burqa and the bikini.
Hindu renaissance seeks to provide
the middle path. Hinduism is on one hand
critical of the do-all-that-pleases-you
attitude and on the other hand refuses to see
human beings as sheep. It provides
one freedom within the broad constraints of
social good leaving micro-level decision
making to each individual.
When one looks at mankind’s journey spanning
many millenniums, an individual is
an infinitesimally small entity. The author
of this manifesto is no exception. He has
no illusions of being able to shape history
of mankind. The movement of history
happens due to reasons and forces that we can
never fully understand. Each one of
us can only play a small role in this grand
movement. As mankind moves to the
direction of Global Hindu Renaissance, let us
all join this turn of events and shoulder
the responsibility that is cast on us.
B. Historical Perspective A – The Reason for
the Fall
Let us go back in time to about 1000 CE. At
that time all Abrahamic religions or
one-book religions were fringe entities.
Though no reliable statistics are available, it
may be reasonably assumed that, followers of
one-book religions constituted less
than 5% of world population at that time
(currently, they account for about 50% of
world population). Europe had not been
Christianized except in small pockets.
Americas and Australia were unknown to
Christian missionaries and Islamic armies.
Africa (excluding some parts in North) had
neither Islam nor Christianity. Most of
Asia had never heard of one-book religions.
In the pre-1000 era, there were many popular
religious traditions – all locally rooted
in their respective regions. Yet, these
traditions were linked to each other at a
philosophical level. All of them respected
and worshipped nature. All of them helped
a human being live a more complete life. All
of them stressed on basic human values
like family, love, kindness, social responsibilities
etc. It can even be said that they
shared a perspective of the world. To
understand the religious traditions of that era, it
is useful to consider a large banyan tree
with multiple roots – each root as important
as the other with no single root in a
position to claim the right to be the main trunk.
Names of specific regional religious
traditions are not important. We need to look at
the character and not the names. The
commonality of character is undeniable
whether one is looking at the pre-1000-CE
traditions of Africa or Australia or
Americas or Europe or Asia.
During that period, the universities or
centers of learning in Indian sub-continent (and
probably in some other countries like China)
provided useful intellectual guidance
and support to the global thought and faith
process. The destruction of centers of
learning in Indian sub-continent after 1000
CE, hence, delivered a major blow to the
global religious traditions, which were
called as pagan in a derogatory way by
one-book religions.
The fall of temple of Somnath (located in the
state of Gujarat on the western coast of
India) in 1024 CE by an Islamic invader was
the beginning of the process of
destruction of centers of learning in India.
It represents a key event in world history.
Egypt and Iran had been conquered before
that. But India was a prize catch – not
only because it was a rich country but
because the country was one big impediment
in the path of the spread of one-book
religions. The country’s institutions had the
best libraries in the world. The respect that
her centers of learning received across
the world was something to be envious of.
During the next few centuries, the
invaders made sure that they burnt every
library and also every book that they could
lay their hands on. Of course, it may be
mentioned here that they had earlier done
the same in Egypt and Iran. The scale of
destruction in India and its global impact
was much more immense.
It is said that all wars are first lost in
the minds then on the battle field. Two centuries
before the fall of Somnath the intellectual
class of India had started moving towards
what has been called as Vedanta (literally
meaning end of Vedas or what comes
after the Vedas). Different schools of
Vedanta do some fine hairsplitting on various
metaphysical and philosophical questions.
Without getting into the details, one can
observe that Vedanta focused on Moksh (salvation)
while the earlier thought was
focused entirely on Trivarg (Dharm,
Arth and Kaam). In a way, Vedanta was a
turning point in the religious thought of
that time. Suddenly, the world was being
seen as an illusion (maya). Surely,
there were bright arguments that could dazzle
anyone into believing that world is indeed
illusory.
Studying philosophy as a young student, one
is often impressed by smart quotes like
– “A man slept and dreamt that he was a
butterfly. He woke up and wondered
whether it was a butterfly dreaming that it
was a man or a man dreaming that it was
a butterfly.” In due course, one learns that
such smart twist of words is good to
impress people about one’s intellectual
powers but in reality they are diversions that
must be avoided. The Vedanta school of
philosophy did not (and has not) learn this
simple lesson.
The illusionism of Vedanta combined with
focus on Moksh led the centers of learning
across India on a wild-goose chase. They
ignored development of science and
technology tying themselves in beautiful
knots over meaningless metaphysical
debates. It is also likely that they
discouraged the kings from spending on armies
and armaments; and encouraged them to spend
on temples to make sure that they
got moksh. It is interesting to note
that Shrimad Valmikiy Ramayan (excluding Uttar
Kand) makes no mention of moksh. In
Mahabharat (excluding Moksh Parv and
subsequent chapters) the consistent and
oft-repeated line of thought is that there is
always doubt about moksh, so one should only
pursue Trivarg (Dharm, Arth and
Kaam). Obviously, the Uttar Kand, and Moksh Parv were added to the original
texts
by Vedanta schools of thought.
The contradiction of Vedanta (and
moksh-centric thought) with the original texts is
too glaring to ignore. It can be said that
pre-Vedanta Hinduism was practical
down-to-earth and realistic while Vedanta
converted Hinduism into a spiritual pursuit
far removed from the realities of day-to-day
life. We do not know when the move
towards Vedanta started but we know the
effect that it produced. By 1024 CE, the
time of fall of Somnath, Vedanta had become
central to the accepted academic
thought in almost all Indian centers of
learning.
If world is an illusion, why bother about it?
Development of science and technology
or even armies and arms surely cannot be a
priority for someone who is aiming for
the reality beyond the illusion of the world.
The reality beyond the illusion is to be
achieved by rituals and other procedures like
elaborate worship. So, rituals and
worship became central while pursuit of
understanding of mundane stuff like warfare,
armaments, equipments etc. were relegated to
some dark dirty place outside the
centers of learning. This was also the time
when many centers of learning changed
their focus from learning and teaching to
worship and prayers. This was the
metamorphosis of a university into a temple.
Of course, it must be stated that the
metamorphosis was a slow process and even till
the end some centers of learning retained
their character. In 1193, the University of
Nalanda was ransacked and its library was
burnt. Somnath was a temple and
Nalanda was a university, which continued to
exist for almost 170 years after the fall
of Somnath. It may be mentioned here that
there is no mention of any temple in
either Shrimad Valmikiy Ramayan or in
Mahabharat.
The conversion of universities into temples
far removed from education of worldly
subjects is a historical blunder that
occurred under the influence of Vedanta and
moksh-centric thought. Some might put this
blame on the feet of Adi
Shankaracharya. However, it seems reasonable
to say that while he might have
played an important or even critical role,
blame for the grand madness that gripped
an entire civilization with a global
footprint must surely rest on many more persons.
As a result of the historical blunder, armies
lost their cutting edge. Battle of Somnath
was lost in the classrooms of Indian
universities much before Mahmud of Ghazni
was even born. The crippling effect of
Vedanta and moksh continued on Indian mind
for many centuries even after the fall of
Somnath. About two centuries after the fall of
Somnath, Arabs learnt gunpowder technology
from Chinese while Indians did not.
Invaders coming from around 1300 CE till the
time of Moguls in 1526 CE took
advantage of the technological superiority
achieved by use of gunpowder to defeat
Hindu kings. Even during Mogul rule, while
fighting with Hindu rulers the Moguls
enjoyed the benefit of gunpowder. It was only
in the latter half of seventeenth century
that Moguls faced two adversaries who knew
the use of gunpowder – Guru Govind
Singh and Shivaji. Both employed Muslim
experts to build their cannon power. Sure
enough, both of them sounded the death knell
of Mogul empire.
Another instance of inability of Hindu mind –
numbed by Vedanta and moksh – to
assimilate technology was seen when Europeans
(British and Portuguese) landed in
India. By that time Hindus as well as Muslims
knew the use of
gunpowder in cannons, but the miniaturization
of the technology
to guns or rifles was not learnt. Till as
late as the first Indian war
of independence in 1857, Indian forces were
fighting with swords
against British soldiers who had guns. Almost
every major North
Indian town has a statue of Queen Laxmi Bai
of Jhansi who died
fighting very bravely against the British.
The statue always shows
queen with a sword in her hand. The Queen had
a sword while
every British soldier had a gun. What chance
did she have?
Talking of India’s freedom movement, it is
worthwhile to note that the collapse of
Indian struggle in 1857 had killed all hopes
of the country’s independence. The work
of raising the consciousness of the country
out of the despair that it had fallen into
was the work of two Hindu sanyasis (monks)
– Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati and
Swami Vivekanand.
The mainstream flag bearers and thought
leaders of Hinduism opposed tooth and
nail both Swami Dayanand Saraswati and Swami
Vivekanand just as they had
opposed Guru Gobind Singh and Maharaj
Shivaji.
Shankaracharyas and such other designation
bearers of Hindu religion avoided
playing any role in India’s freedom struggle.
They had a justification for doing this.
They argued that they were concerned with
religion and spiritual matters. They did
not want to get their hands dirty with
politics or for that matter with anything worldly –
all that is maya (illusion). Of
course, they had no qualms about collecting gold and
silver by tons. The schism between the
spiritual world and the mundane realities of
day-to-day life was (and is still) a
convenient one for all those who live a so-called
religious or spiritual life. They bury their
heads in sands of Vedanta when it suits
them and jump out when they see an
opportunity to collect money.
The flag bearers of Hinduism who see
spiritual and real life as two separate worlds
ignore the fact that the foundation epics of
Hinduism – Shrimad Valmikiy Ramayan
and Mahabharat – are stories of war. The
persons that Hindus hold in the greatest
regard – Ved Vyas, Ram, Krishn, and Arjun –
are all men of action who did not
spend their life chanting away hymns. In
fact, in both Shrimad Valmikiy Ramayan
and Mahabharat, the persons who get killed
and lose the war are the ones who
spent huge time in worshipping one deity or
the other. Ravan, Indrajit, Karn – all of
them were great devotees. Karn’s worship of
Sun was legendary. Mahabharat
mentions about how he used to stand in
waist-deep water from dawn to dusk facing
the sun. Yet, the cosmic being had to plan
and ensure his defeat and death.
Let us get back to our attempt to understand
the history of past one thousand years.
The fall of Somnath was the first among a
chain of events across the globe. A
massive banyan tree had been infected by a
virus which led to its primary trunk
becoming weak causing a breach in its
immunological systems. What followed was a
devastation that could never have been
imagined by human mind before that day.
The worst possible genocide was committed in
every part of the world.
Christianification of Europe was a bloody
affair with massacres, harsh inquisitions
and witch-hunting continuing for more than
five centuries. What Europe saw was
surely nothing compared to what the natives
of Americas, Australia and Africa had to
bear. Asia had its own share of troubles with
Islamic as well as Christian armies. Just
about a century ago, China had to suffer
Opium Wars. Less than a century ago,
India suffered man-made famines that killed
millions.
Sure enough, not all of this bloodshed was
caused by armies of one-book religions.
Mostly it was caused by secular armies and
institutions driven by greed. The fact is
that generally speaking in the past one
thousand years the sufferer was often a
pagan and the suffering was inflicted by a
follower or pseudo-follower of one-book
religions. In all cases the institutions of
one-book religions (Church or the Islamic
heads) either directly supported the act of
inflicting pain, suffering and bloodshed or
at least looked the other way. The world
cannot forget the support extended to
slavery and colonialism by the Church as well
as by the Islamic wise men. The script
for Opium Wars was written by Christian
missionaries. The Churches in Kolkata
continued to serve bread and wine even as
millions starved to death in the Bengal
famine.
No, we do not complain. We are not even
surprised by the behavior of the clergy and
wise men. They did what seemed (and still
seems) right to them. Our complaint is
with our own wise men and thought leaders.
Hindu shankaracharyas or such other
temple-heads have never spoken a word about
Bengal famine. May we ask why?
While we leave it to them to answer such
uncomfortable questions, let us just ignore
them and move forward in our study of
history. Before that let us state the lessons
that we can learn from the ideological
blunders that led to a thousand years of pain
and suffering for the world:
a) Moksh or liberation is an illusion that
only leads to disaster. It is high time that
we purged our minds of Moksh.
b) The world is a reality. Anyone who argues
otherwise must be ignored.
C. Historical Perspective B – Surviving After
the Fall
It is indeed tough to live through a period
of history when all the old institutions are
being destroyed and air smells of pain,
oppression, torture and genocide. Keeping
one’s belief system intact is almost
impossible in such difficult times. Europe
succumbed and adopted Christianity. Natives
of Americas and Australia were wiped
out. West Asia and North Africa could not
resist the Islamic onslaught and converted.
The only country that faced both Islamic
invaders as well as Christian ones is India.
The unique aspect is that despite losing to
both, a large portion of the population of
India successfully resisted both the one-book
religions and retained their original
belief system in some form or the other. No
other country in the world can claim this
achievement.
Survival through thousand years of
oppressive, torturous regimes was not easy for
Hindus in India. They could survive and save
their ancient belief system partly due to
inherent strength of the belief system and
partly because they were quick to adapt,
learn and modify.
Hindu religion and thought went through a
transformation during the past thousand
years. As institutions of learning were being
destroyed and social structure was
suffering shocks, a new movement emerged in
Hinduism. The movement was based
on bhakti or devotion to an
incarnation of the Almighty. Many Hindu saints that are
known today were part of Bhakti Movement.
Goswami Tulsidas, Surdas and Meera
were the prominent saints of the movement. It
should be noted that Hinduism prior to
1024 CE had no saints who laid stress on
bhakti or devotion. Bhakti Movement was
a phenomenon of the millennium of pain and
torture that Hindus suffered.
Bhakti Movement served a very useful role in the times in which it emerged. It
helped
Hindus bear the pain. It helped to keep the
flame of faith alive when there seemed to
be no hope. The description “opium of the
masses” is a fitting one for the Bhakti
movement version of Hinduism. However, one
must understand that a sedative has
a useful role when a body is undergoing a
surgical operation. The painful incisions
that were being applied on the Hindu body
could not have been endured if the saints
of Bhakti Movement had not provided
their soothing touch.
With due respect to the great saints of the
past millennium, it is time to move on and
shed the sedative lest it becomes a
life-threatening habit. As Hinduism struggles to
rise up from the ashes of yesterday, it must
grow out of its Bhakti Movement version.
It is time that we keep aside Goswami
Tulsidas’s Ramcharit Manas and rediscover
the ancient Ramayan of Valmiki (excluding
Uttar Kand, which was added much
later). It may be clarified here that moving
away from Bhakti movement does not
mean completely giving up devotion to a
cosmic reality or its manifestations. It is just
that the level of emphasis that Bhakti movement
placed on bhakti is not acceptable.
It may be pointed out here that Bhakti
Movement was a natural evolution from the
Vedanta or Moksh-centered thought that had
gripped Hinduism for centuries before
the rise of the movement. We shall not get
into the details of the process of that
evolution and shall instead look at another
phenomenon that took place during the
past century.
In the previous section there was a mention
of Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati and
Swami Vivekanand, the two great monks who
played a historical role in kindling the
fire of India’s independence movement. Both
were truly anti-thesis of Bhakti
Movement. They emphasized knowledge and
action. They inspired people of India to
dream of freedom.
Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha were the two
pioneer nation-wide organizations
that pushed for India’s freedom. However, an
interesting unintended offshoot of their
efforts was the association of Hinduism with
the geographical entity called India.
One does not know how this falsity got
coinage that Arabs who could not pronounce
Sindhu used the word Hindu to refer to all
those who lived east of Sindhu. So the
word Hindu was denied any etymological links
to Sanskrit or to the ancient
philosophical traditions. The Hindu
organizations like Arya Samaj, Hindu Mahasabha
and later Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh found
it convenient to lap up this falsity
primarily because it suited their
nationalistic agenda. The inspiration that non-bhakti
Hindu thought provided to Indian
nationalistic movement is a historical reality that led
to the collapse of imperialism across the
world. But the unfortunate side effect of it
has been to limit Hinduism to a land-mass.
Sadly, the present-day so-called Hindu
organizations believe in a definition of
Hinduism that is focused on Hinduism as a
faith or way-of-life based on devotion to a
land-mass. This is most harmful to Hinduism
as a global religion.
As Hinduism seeks to rise to provide
friendship, guidance and support to
non-one-book religions across the world, it
must first rid itself of all such
geography-centered definitions that cut it
off from its true roots.
To sum up our review of the past thousand
years of Hindu thought, we can say that
for a true Hindu renaissance, Hinduism must
shed away the following two:
a) Bhakti Movement or a belief that bhakti
(or devotion) can solve one and all
problems for an individual
b) Linking Hinduism to the land-mass called
India
D. Some Definitions
The word “Hindu” is made of two words H and
Indu. H means the sky and Indu
means the moon. This can be interpreted to
mean that one who spreads cool light
like the moon in the sky is a Hindu. Another
word associated with Hindu is Bharat. In
fact, Bharat is a synonym of Hindu. The word
Bharat is made of two words Bha and
Rat. Bha means Light and Rat means the one who is full of or saturated with.
In
other words Bharat means the one who
is full of and spreads light.
The word Bharatvarsh has often been
used for a large part of land. Varsh means
varsha or rain. Combining the meanings of Bharat and varsh we can
understand that
the word Bharatvarsh was used for the
region where the Hindu knowledge rained or
had influence.
Essentially, both the words, Hindu and
Bharat, refer to a person glowing with
knowledge. Hinduism accords the highest place
to learned persons. A Hindu is
supposed to always respect the learned. This
is one of the fundamental foundation
blocks of Hinduism – more about it later.
The totality of the sky including the earth
and all other planets is named as Universe
or Cosmos and is known by the word Brahm in
Sanskrit. This Universe or Cosmos is
shashwat or eternal, in other words it has always been and shall always be, though
it
keeps changing. Hindu sees himself as a part
of the Universe or Cosmos. A Hindu’s
belief, faith, actions, lifestyle, thoughts
should be in accordance with the rules of the
Cosmos. There could possibly be different
views about the Cosmos between two
persons due to different perspectives.
However, if the difference of views is due to
different perspectives and not due to
preconceived notions, both persons, though
holding divergent views are Hindus.
It is also necessary to understand the word Dharm.
It is best to understand Dharm
as obligations cast upon one by relationships
that one is part of. The word
Dharan and Dharm have the same root. Dharan means to wear or to
carry and
Dharm refers to what is put on. Dharm can be compared to clothing. Just as
a
person changes his clothes as per the
time-place and his own personal
requirements, the Dharm for a Hindu is
constantly changing. Dharm, on one hand
helps one live one’s life as per the
requirements of the cosmos and on the other
hand, assists one in acting as per one’s own
nature and aptitude. A more detailed
discussion on dharm will come later.
At this point, it is necessary to clarify
that the word “dharm” is used with two different
meanings. In one sense, it refers to an
individual’s obligations in a relationship. For
example, one can talk about one’s dharm to
one’s father. On the other hand, the
word “dharm” is also used to refer to the
totality of the belief system, ideological
framework and philosophical paradigm of
Hinduism. Both the meanings are correct
and are used widely.
E. Overview of Basic Structure of Hindu
Thought
The direction of arrows may also be reversed.
Hinduism is a comprehensive holistic thought
system that covers every aspect of
human life. The above diagram illustrates the
fundamental foundation blocks of
Hindu thought system. As shown in the above
diagram, the three fundamental
foundation blocks of Hindu Dharm are as
follows:
Trisutr – Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram – Truth,
Goodness and Beauty
Respecting the Learned also called Brahmin.
Notably, the Brahmin is never
worshipped. One respects the Brahmin and
follows the path shown by the
learned one.
Dev Life refers to living life like a dev.
One must not confuse dev with the
concept of God as seen in all one-book
religions. It is also important to
understand that the focus is on living life of a
dev and not worshipping a dev
Manifesto
of
Hindu Renaissance
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My
humble salutations to Sri Anil Chawla ji
and hindu samskrit dot com for the
collection)
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